


loyaultie me lie

by taichara



Category: Rockman Zero | Mega Man Zero
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 09:41:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2264916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though he's closing in on "Master X", Zero finds himself doubting his reason for hunting down the ruler of Neo-Arcadia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	loyaultie me lie

**Author's Note:**

> _Originally posted to deviantArt as a Robot Rumpus 2012 gift for aipe-hirokareo._

It was not like him to be haunted by battles from the past; the past was gone, as lost to time and dust as his own memories, and could not be changed. And yet this one lingered in his thoughts even as he fenced and fought with the shadow Guardian’s icy sibling, ignoring her screams and mocking laughter as he fought her back. Leviathan would fall, and he would move forward –

In his mind’s eye Zero saw, not the glittering ice-blue of Leviathan’s sharp eyes, but the shadow and crimson of Phantom. He saw the grim resolve, saw the shadowy body crumple as he drove his sabre home in a spray of clinging vital fluids … saw Phantom spitting his life out in a shower of sparks and fading core, engulfing them both in fire and fury in his desperate Final Strike. The dark Guardian sacrificed himself, and it gnawed at Zero like a mouse on a cable.

_Why? Why did Phantom do it?_

_He’d already lost to me. He must have known that he could not stop me._

_Then why did he throw his life away?_

Zero had no fear of death, and even less compunction about dealing it out to others; but this was different, and as he crushed Leviathan and fled deeper into the complex – she left laughing and cursing behind him -- he turned the issue over and over, prodding at it irritably. What made the difference? 

_‘No one shall disgrace Master X’ … ‘I won’t allow you to reach him’ … One out of four. Only he said anything about X – about the copy. The other three fought for themselves._

_Is that it, then? Loyal to his master, loyal enough to kill himself -- was that the difference?_

_Then why does it matter to me?_

Loyalty – the word whispered hollowly in his mind, a dry textbook definition without cause or context, and yet Zero knew it, knew it deep in the core of his being. Loyalty, or something closely akin to it, tied him to Ciel and to her cause; he fought for her, the one who drew him back from the brink of extinction, far more than he did for the nebulous Resistance.

Or did he?

_\- loyaultie me lie : ‘loyalty binds me’ -_

A bitter, metallic taste rose in his mouth, as much in his mind as a physical sensation. The corridors he followed by instinct now, sabre held ready even as his attention drew inward.

_Am I loyal to Ciel?_

_Of course I am._

_But …_

But that loyalty did not come from her, not entirely. 

The revelation washed over him all at once, a sudden enlightenment that would have caused others to stagger in stunned astonishment; Zero simply kept moving forward, allowing his thoughts to move at their own pace even as he marked the sudden appearance of a squadron of shambling Pantheons in the intersection ahead. Smoothly he shifted from sabre to buster, planting his feet and spraying the mass of blue and grey armour with a hail of fire. The Pantheons crumpled silently; Zero barely noticed. The buster slid smoothly back into its holster as he padded past the oozing wreckage and drove deeper into the complex.

Ciel was not the only recipient of his loyalty. She was not even the first.

_\- ‘I will trust in those that you trust’ -_

_That light … that light that gave me my sabre. It gave me my sabre so I could save Ciel from the Golem._

A familiar thing, that sabre; it had slid into his grip as if it had always been there, and as he’d made short work of the Golem he’d felt, almost, as If that light had directed him to follow through and save Ciel. As if – almost as if he were following the light’s wishes …

_And I wanted to. It felt right; it still feels right. I know that light, somewhere in the me that I lost. I want to help that light, and if that means helping Ciel then I help Ciel._

Because, after all, didn’t Ciel and the light have the same goal? The eradication of X, of that replica of X that tyrannized reploids and made Neo-Arcadia into a hell? Until recently, he’d thought that that copy was X, but the light called Master X a copy of itself – of himself. And that, itself, reinforced what Ciel had implied with her comments about ‘regenerating’ X …

_And then she confirmed it, just before I left._

_Copy or original, it doesn’t matter. Master X is the enemy, and I will destroy my enemy._

_That is my wish. My purpose. To do what Ciel, to do what that light – what X – cannot do, to destroy whatever enemy comes across my path. My wish is to follow their wishes for them._

_I suppose this is also loyalty. The only loyalty I can give until I know who I am._

Directly ahead, massive alloyed doors, flickering with circuitry and glowing conduits, slid open like a gaping maw and Zero steeled himself for what lay beyond. The belly of the beast; the final battle, the final goal. Without a pause he plunged through those jaws – and promptly came up short, confronted with the battered defiance of the three remaining Guardians who moved to block his path.

_So they rallied to their master after all –_

Snarling, he drew his sabre and squared to meet them only to be distracted by the high sharp command to stop that rang through the echoing chamber. The trio turned as one towards the source of the order; despite his wariness, Zero allowed his gaze to slide in the same direction.

There stood an imperious figure in white and gold, blood-ruby eyes sharp as knives and cold as ice. X.

_No, copy of X …_

For a fraction of a second Zero saw, thought he saw, an image of another time; X in white and gold, splashed with blood and fluid, green eyes despairing as he stood on the field of battle –

And then it was gone. 

_\- ‘I will have faith’ -_

Zero shook his head fractionally and focused his attention as the copy ordered his servants away. That was X? How he could he even remember that if his memory was lost?

_Doesn’t matter._

_What matters is now._

_This copy is wrong; he is my enemy, X’s enemy, Ciel’s enemy._

_For them, he dies._

__

_\- ‘the azure of heaven,  
the scarlet of hell’ -_


End file.
